Former secretary of state Colin Powell said the Republican Party needs to “get a grip on itself.” “Right now Republican leaders and members of the Congress, both Senate and the House, are holding back because they’re terrified of what will happen to any one of them if they speak out,” he told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria during an interview at the New Albany Community Foundation in Ohio, referring to President Trump’s behavior and the impeachment inquiry. Powell, who served as national security adviser to President Reagan and secretary of state under President George W. Bush, then touched on the recent debacle between Trump and the National Weather Service, when Republicans backed the president’s inaccurate rendering of a hurricane projection map. “In my time… one of us would have gone to the president and said ‘Mr. President, you screwed up,’” Powell said. “… This is not the way the country is supposed to run… And Congress is one of the institutions that should be doing something about this.”
View the complete October 6 article by Audrey McNamara on the Daily Beast website here.
Despite his anemic approval ratings, President Donald Trump could nonetheless win reelection in 2020 if he aggressively turns out his base and Democrats don’t do enough to get out the vote. But turnout is about who actually shows up on Election Day — not who is winning the war of ideas — and according to veteran Republican strategist Stuart Stevens, the party winning overall public opinion isn’t the GOP.
WASHINGTON — Elliott Broidy had the kind of past that might have given a more traditional White House reason to keep him at a distance: A wealthy businessman, he had 
President Trump and the Republican National Committee filed two lawsuits Tuesday against California officials challenging a new law that would bar Trump from appearing on the state’s primary ballot next year if he declines to disclose his tax returns.
Trump has already informed at least two GOP lawmakers of his dissatisfaction with their defense of his racist tweets.